Life, 1927-09-22 · page 29 of 40
Life — September 22, 1927 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising for Grebe brand radios**, not political satire. The left side features a humorous comic strip titled "The Triumph of a Grebe Testing Room Engineer," showing an engineer discovering a Grebe radio plays slightly "off in tone"—a self-deprecating joke about product quality. The right side advertises three Grebe products: the Natural Speaker ($35), Socket Power unit ($50), and Synchrohpase Seven ($135), emphasizing their superior sound reproduction and reliability. The comic strip's eight panels depict exaggerated physical comedy—characters reacting dramatically to the radio discovery—typical of 1920s-30s humor conventions. This appears to be a **product placement advertisement disguised as entertainment**, a common Life magazine strategy. The "triumph" is ironic: the engineer's careful testing reveals the product's minor flaw, yet Grebe uses this to demonstrate quality control and attention to detail.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
VER two years were spent in exhaustive re- search and experiment in Grebe lak ies before the Grebe Natural Speaker was declarec verior. Reproduces tone clearly, naturally, faithfully. $35 The Grebe Socket Power (Types 671 and 671-B) gives permanent, ampl “B" and chrophase Seven. May be edon A.C. current from 105 to 110 volts, 50 to 60 cycles. Practical, economi- cal, quiet. Less tube S50 phase Seven or tone qual- e@ artist sings—as you are listening to radio. Striking in beauty, un- equaled in performance RABIO “off in tone — res He discovers a Grebe Radio a fraction comicbooks.com